Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona is adopting an adorable mascot, and we need you to vote on BBB’s Facebook page to choose the most deserving nominee!

You will be able to choose between four dogs and three cats, currently strutting their stuff in a photo album at www.facebook.com/soazbbb. Make sure to check out the biography for each pet to help you decide which would make the perfect mascot.

BBB’s mission is to be the leader in advancing marketplace trust, so BBB’s mascot must not only be cute, it must be able to help BBB continue to foster an ethical marketplace in Southern Arizona- as well as be a courageous scam fighter!

Among the would-be mascots you can choose from are a rat-hunting Yorkshire Terrier, a cat named Yogi that specializes in “covert operations,” and a Jack Russell Terrier/Dachshund/Chihauhua mix from Alaska that claims to be a “pure bred mama’s boy.”

BBB feels that all the competitors would make fine mascots, but sadly there can only be one. To vote, visit BBB’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/soazbbb, click on the mascot photo album, and simply ‘like’ the photo of your preferred mascot.

Voting runs from noon today, until noon on Dec. 31. The winner will be announced on BBB’s Facebook page on Jan. 2. Make sure to log in and vote!

Pet lovers seeking new canine companions are often surprised, and sometimes discouraged, to discover how expensive a purebred puppy or dog can be. Purebreds can cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars, not including veterinary, shipping and pedigree costs.

That’s why the Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona is cautioning consumers to watch out for classified ads offering purebred puppies for free or at prices that seem too good to be true.

Classified ads have been appearing in newspapers around the country offering free Yorkshire terrier puppies – a breed that typically sells for $250-$2,000 apiece.

Puppy scams often hook people with offers of free puppies, collect money for bogus fees, such as shipping or ‘ownership transfer,’ and then never deliver the advertised puppies or dogs.

Many of these scams originate in Africa, especially Cameroon. This May a student in Minnesota lost over $1,000 to one of these scams when they tried to purchase a puppy online. The business listed itself as having a Minneapolis address but was actually operating out of Cameroon.

The BBB offers the following tips to avoid scams when you’re looking to adopt or sell a pet:

• Beware of ads with multiple misspellings and grammatical errors; many pet scams come from (more…)